


All's Well (that Ends Well)

by bookstorequeer



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Minor Injuries, Parenthood, Rescue, Uncle-Nephew Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstorequeer/pseuds/bookstorequeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Fíli plays Lassie, Thorin is a great uncle, and the trouble-twins learn to listen a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All's Well (that Ends Well)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adariall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adariall/gifts).



> For archae_ology who made me go see "The Hobbit" for the third time today and who, I figured, could use a fun fic.

It wasn't the first time that Thorin had been interrupted in the middle of blacksmithing by Fíli pelting into the smithy. It was, however, the first time the young dwarf had been in tears.  
  
"Uncle! Uncle, come quick!"  
  
Thorin knew of only one thing that could put that particular break in his young nephew's voice. It was more telling that Kíli didn't come scrambling into the forge behind his brother. The twenty-nine-and-a-half year old—who seemed less mature than the human nine year olds he'd met—was always following his older brother, even places that a dwarf so young shouldn’t go.  
  
"What is it?" the older dwarf demanded, already laying his hammer and the half-finished sword aside. He didn't bother with his thick apron as he followed the breathless youngling through the crowds outside.  
  
"He—He— I didn't think he'd _do_  it, Uncle! You have to believe me!"  
  
Grabbing young, slim shoulders, Thorin held the harried creature still.  
  
"Fíli, son of Dis, grandson of Thráin, calm down and tell me what’s befallen your brother."  
  
His chest felt tighter at the shuddering breaths little Fíli had to take before he could speak, body quivering with adrenaline.  
  
"He's fallen down the old well outside of town. I— I told him there was no way he could climb the rope across the top."  
  
Thorin cursed and barely resisted the urge to shake his nephew. He'd told them more times than he could remember not to play around the crumbling masonry, but it was still the best game to defy their uncle and they were found amid the grass and broken stones more often than not.  
  
"I'm  _sorry_ , Uncle."  
  
"I know you are," was all he could manage, hauling Fíli by the collar quickly through the crowds, his own heart struggling in his vice-gripped chest. That well was a deep one, deeper than the living quarters in their old mountain hall home, and Thorin had no misgivings about how dangerous and jagged the bottom would be.  
  
  
Setting Fíli none-too-gently aside and falling to his knees beside the age-worn mouth of the abandoned fount, Thorin could just faintly hear the whimper of breathless crying over the sound of the pulse in his ears.  
  
" _Kíli_!" he called, searching the murky bottom for any sign of his youngest kin.  
  
"Uncle! Uncle, please! It hurts!"  
  
“Where do you hurt, Kíli?”  
  
“My leg, Uncle. And my arm. And my head.”  
  
“Your head is a rock,” Thorin called, trying to reassure the youngling and himself.  
  
A weak laugh reached him but its breathlessness just made him worry more. Kíli needed more help than he could give him from this height. Casting around, Thorin cursed again when the old well rope crumbled and broke in his hand. He reached out to his nearest trembling nephew and shook Fíli gently.  
  
"I'm going to get him but I need you to get the healer from town."  
  
"I don't want to leave..."  
  
"Fíli. If he's hurt, then he needs help and I need you to go get it for him, okay, little warrior?"  
  
Fíli swallowed thickly and shuddered a little in Thorin's grip.  
  
"Y-yes, Uncle. I-I'll go."  
  
"Good. Now hurry."  
  
Thorin spared a moment to watch Fíli square his shoulders and nod once, aging before his eyes; the older dwarf spent half a heartbeat wishing it didn't have to be so.   
  
"U-uncle?"  
  
The inquiry was tremulous and weak; Thorin scrambled back to the well's gaping mouth and caught his breath. He could see a vague, broken shape in the shifting light of the overcast afternoon; it wasn’t good.  
  
"Kíli, don't move, youngling. I'm here. I'll get you out."  
  
"Please, Uncle, it hurts."  
  
Thorin cursed beneath his breath, casting around and coming up empty of rope or any way of hauling Kíli out, save going down there himself. He closed his eyes briefly, calling on the ancient dwarven kings to help him, and carefully lowered himself over the edge of the well. His worn leather apron hampered him but he didn’t dare stop to slip out of it; there were plenty of holds for his hands and feet but the masonry was weak and the mortar was dust beneath his fingertips. He didn’t dare pause.  
  
Below him, Kíli continued to whimper and shift in pain.  
  
"Shhh, little one, don't cry." Thorin murmured, breathless with stress and no little fear himself — it had been a long time since he’d been his far beneath the earth and there was still a long way to the bottom. If he slipped, it could very well kill them both.  
  
Taking a short, quivering breath when Kíli cried out again, Thorin began to speak softly, telling his youngest another story of the brothers’ favourite Dwarven warrior.  
  
His voice rasped and broke as he climbed but he heard Kíli murmuring breathlessly along to the familiar story, over the grate of his feet on stone. When he finally reached the bottom, Thorin sighed and resisted the urge to embrace the stone beneath his feet; dwarves were not made for climbing without rope or help.  
  
He turned at the gasped "Uncle!" and flinched at the crumpled nephew waiting for his rescue.  
  
"Oh Kíli," he murmured, fingers carding through muddy hair in search of goose-eggs and comfort. "You've done a number on yourself, little warrior," he said, wincing along with the youngling as he secured Kíli's arm as gently and firmly as he could across his swollen collarbone.  
  
Thorin almost wished his nephew would give in to unconsciousness as he looked at the twisted bone of his leg. Stabilizing it as best he could with what was left of his own shirt, the heir of Erebor murmured comforts and snippets of his nephews' favourite stories as he worked. Picking up the trembling, sweat-soaked dwarf, Thorin set him to his own chest, using that worn leather apron as a sling. He could feel Kíli's muted whimpers and aborted flinches against his bare chest and bussed a quick kiss to dirty hair.  
  
"I've got you, Kíli, I've got you."  
  
It was much more difficult climbing up with an injured nephew against his chest but Thorin knew that he couldn't have acted any differently the instant he felt Kíli sag trustingly against his heartbeat. It might have been smarter to strap the injured to his back but Thorin needed to feel Kíli's heartbeat against his own almost as much as he felt that Kíli needed his.

  
"Uncle! Grab on!"  
  
Arms trembled with fatigue, Thorin barely managed to wrap his fingers around the rope Fíli, finally returned, tossed down to him. It was easier to reach the top with someone else helping and soon the older dwarf was able to stand shakily as a healer from the village, out of breath and red in the face, took Kíli's pulse and pursed her lips.  
  
"Bring him," the healer said, before Thorin could set the child down on the grass. "He needs more help than I can give him here."  
  
So, it was to Thorin to carry his trembling nephew a little further, and to pretend that he didn't feel the tears cooling against his skin. When he was finally able to set his cargo down onto the healer's table, Thorin was nearly as dirty as he could see that Kíli was. As soon as he was free of the injured dwarf, he curled an arm around the other youngling that clung to him.  
  
"Shhh, little warrior. He'll be all right."  
  
"It's all my fault, Uncle. I should never have told him he couldn't do it. I should have known better!"  
  
"Yes," the elder Durin-heir agreed, "you should have known better, but so should your brother have had a brain in his head. He's nearly in his third decade and I swear you two are only twenty years, all added together."  
  
"Yes, Uncle."  
  
Thorin sighed and squeezed Fíli against his chest.  
  
"He'll be a while getting better, youngling. You'd best keep him occupied while he's bedridden, shouldn't you?"  
  
"Yes, Uncle."  
  
Later, watching Fíli curl around his bedraggled and drug-dozing brother, Thorin wondered how long this injury would keep either dwarf down. It wasn't the first time they'd been knocked about but, at least, their uncle was fairly confident that it would be the last time he'd be pulled from smithing to rescue his stone-headed kin from the things they'd been already told to avoid, especially that cursed well.  
  
  
  
"Uncle! Uncle, come quick!"  
  
Thorin jolted out of his forging trance, hammer and sword still quivering in his hands. It had been three month since Fíli had burst into the smithy to drag him to the old well, and two since he'd heard the Kíli-break in his nephew's voice. The last time, their youngest had snuck out of the healing house with a hard bandage on his leg and mischief intended. Thorin had caught him in the middle of a briar patch with mud and sticks in his hair; Kíli still wouldn’t explain how he’d got there and eventually his uncle had stopped asking. It had taken Fíli near tears for Kíli to promise not to attempt escape again, at least not alone, and they’d been inseparable since.  
  
"What is it?" Thorin demanded, setting aside his tools and following his kinsdwarf outside.  
  
Fíli just shook his head and hurried, sliding through the crowds with a practiced ease that Thorin hadn't yet found. He was still too used to the crowds of the Lonely Mountain making way for him, rather than having to forge his own path.  
  
"Fíli, what—"  
  
"Look!" the elder brother cried, pointing to where Kíli was sprawled on the long grasses. There was an arrow in the heart of the tree above his head and although Thorin could not see what was wrong, his chest still tightened painfully. He loved these devils, for all that they drove him mad.  
  
"Kíli!" he called, running across the field before he'd realised that the young archer had risen from sprawled at his voice.  
  
"Uncle, what—"  
  
"Are you all right?" the son of Thráin demanded, hands shaking as they picked grass out of Kíli's messy hair.  
  
"Yes, Uncle. I don't—" Kíli looked up at his brother, flushed from running and too fidgety to be innocent. "Oh brother, you didn't."  
  
"But you—"  
  
Thorin looked between his nephews and began to frown.  
  
"Uncle," Kíli looked back at their scowling elder, swallowing before speaking again. "I hit the bull’s-eye! From across the field."  
  
"You called me here... Away from the forge where I was _working_... because you hit a bull’s-eye?"  
  
"And then he collapsed."  
  
Thorin rounded on the younger dwarf again, eyes wide.  
  
"What?!"  
  
Kíli looked down, fingers playing with the grass beside him. Fíli sat beside him and reached out to still his hand.  
  
"I was happy that I'd made the shot. I guess I got lightheaded..." Kíli admitted, mumbled beneath his breath.  
  
"He's been working too hard, Uncle," the older brother said. "Trying to be good with the bow you gave him. And w-when he collapsed I... I panicked."  
  
Thorin sighed, settling himself down with his nephews.  
  
"Fíli, he's _all right_ ," their uncle soothed. "The healers all say he's made a full recovery. He just needs to ease back into training."  
  
He turned to Kíli, settling a hand on his youngest's shoulder.  
  
"And you, Kíli, need to take care of yourself. No more dawn-to-dusk practices. I'd hoped you would find your boundaries on your own but it does not seem so. I will set them for you."  
  
"But Uncle—"  
  
"No. We nearly lost you once, youngling, and I refuse to come so close again."  
  
Shifting so that he was rested against the tree with his nephews curled against him, Thorin sighed.  
  
"You two will be the death of me."  
  
The young warriors nodded, smiling to each other, and it wasn't long before the unaccustomed stillness in the warm sunlight had them dozing. Thorin kept his own eyes open, still. He had learned that even the most idyllic moments could be wrenched from grasping hands and he wasn't about to let the same happen to his nephews. Not while he could help it.

 

What would surprise Thorin was how much that first fall affected them in the coming years. Because of the collarbone that turned out to be broken, Kíli could not continue in the broadsword and blade training that Thorin insisted on for Fíli. An axe was too heavy on newly knit bone and their uncle had traded his second favourite sword for a bow with dwarvish runes of protection etched into the grip.  
  
He told Fíli to never to let another dwarf question Kíli's choice of weapon; only Fíli himself would have been permitted to ask about it, but he already knew the answer: Kíli's broken bones were better suited to carry and string the lighter bow. His accuracy—which would save their lives on more than one occasion—would be borne of long practice in an effort to make his uncle proud. Thorin was proud when they started listening to him and stopped falling down wells.


End file.
